Available January 2027 - Pre-order now.

A decade after the release of Catherine Eaton Skinner's 108, she returns with 5, a five-volume monograph coalesced around the elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Skinner treats these categories not as fixed subjects, but as a framework for sustained formal experimentation across drawing, painting, photography, and printmaking. An essay by scholar Elizabeth A. Brown follows these elements through Skinner's materials and methods: the rich sienna and raw umber colors of Earth; the compositions of Water with the alchemy of reflections in transparency; the vermilion and cinnabar of Fire smoldering across the canvases; the interaction of corvids and the wind in Air; and the incised precious leaf of Ether, where abstraction reaches into meditation and magical experience. Many of these works derived from Skinner's Tangent series, small ink drawings then expanded into complex paintings through layers of encaustic wax and oil stick. The volumes record 127 works across the full range of saturated hues, multiple transparent layers, and textural painting. Skinner's biography and sometimes turbulent elemental interaction intertwine through her poetry and the richness of her restorative expression. This fertile relationship drawn among these elements is embodied in one of Skinner's poems.

A slight moment

between thought

and emotion

caught in the intersection

among four edges

Artwork by Catherine Eaton Skinner
Essay by Elizabeth Brown
Design by Montana Currie of Currie Creative

Hardcover / 11.5 x 9.5 × 2.5 inches
368 pages / 234 images
ISBN: 978-1-64657-063-8
Copyright @ 2026 Catherine Eaton Skinner

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